Free fiction: Astounding, January 1930 & March 1931

Both @Project Gutenberg.

1. January 1930.
2. March 1931. [via QuasarDragon]

John W Campbell, Jr's "Forgetfulness" (as by Don A Stuart) (novelette, first contact): Technological progress involves forgetting old knowledge

I wonder if van Vogt's fantastic story, "The Monster", was inspired by this? Both involve advanced aliens visiting earth, & trying to bully a single apparantly harmless & unarmed man, & ... getting surprised. van Vogt's version is by far the better of the two; that was the story that made me notice van Vogt.

Story summary.

A pioneering 100-strong alien expedition has arrived on earth ("Rhth", to aliens) from Pareeth. Millions of years ago, their distant animal ancestors were uplifted by humans, & perhaps they've come to pay homage to their benefactors.

What they find here are abandoned cities, a tiny village with virtually no technology, & what remains of the human race apparently living a primitive existence off land.

Aliens are respectful, for old times sake, & a bit arrogant too. Seun, a very humble man, shows them around the dead city, but humanity seems to have forgotten much of the technology that made this city tick.

Aliens go back home. Only to return with a colonizing expedition that has instructions to move the remnants of humanity off to some sort of reservation & use only minimal force, in case of resistance, because of its past glory.

Aliens are in for a shock, when they threaten to use this minimal force...

Collected in.

1. Raymond J Healy & J Francis McComas (Eds)' "Adventures in Time and Space".

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, June 1937.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of John Campbell (as by Don A Stuart); fiction from 1930s.

Free fiction: Astounding, December 1930

At Project Gutenberg & Manybooks. [via SF Signal]

This is an issue edited by Harry Bates. Scans of all issues edited by Bates, plus text versions of several issues, are online.

Related: Fiction from Astounding/Analog (only stories edited by John W Campbell, Jr).

Free fiction: Scans of 3 issues of "Wonder Stories" magazine (edited by Hugo Gernsback) + a Wonder Story anthology

Hugo Gernsback is the man after whom Hugo Awards are named.

Each issue is available at Crosseyed Cyclops as a CBR or CBZ file containing JPG files of individual pages.
Note for readers unfamiliar with these formats: I personally append ".rar" extension to these files, & extract the contained JPEGs with WinRAR. Extracted JPG files are named in a way that IrfanView can read them in original page order. There are also CBR & CBZ viewers out there (but I have never used any).

Neither the name nor publishing frequency appears to have been stable for this magazine - a fact reflected in individual issue titles blow. Stories appear to be mostly planetary adventures.

Links labeled "Download" below go to page containing the scans. Links on a specific issue go to my page that opens up its table of contents.

1. Download Wonder Stories, Vol 2 No 4 (September 1930) & Wonder Stories Quarterly, Vol 3 No 4 (Summer 1932).
2. Download Wonder Stories, Vol 4 No 3 (August 1932).

Download anthology: "Wonder Story Annual", Vol 2 No 1 (1953 Edition), edited by Samuel Mines. Includes fiction by big guns - Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, Henry Kuttner, Jack Williamson, & Fredric Brown.

"Wonder Stories", Vol 2 No 4 (September 1930) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents

It's one of the Hugo Gernsback's magazines, & scans in CBR format are online at Crosseyed Cyclops.

Table of contents.

1. Frank J Bridge's "The War Lord of Venus": "Across fifty million miles & thirty million years they traveled to battle for the supremacy of a great world!"
2. Nat Schachner & Arthur L Zagat's "In 20,000 AD!": "The revolt had come ... but then the great Jed threw over that mob his magnetic power ..."
3. Captain S P Meek's "The Tragedy of Spider Island": "Against those monsters the rays had no longer their force ... & when the tom-toms began beating ..."
4. R F Starlz's "The King of the Black Bowl": "Cut off by a wall of Nothingness ... the great city lay helpless ..."
5. Lowell Howard Morrow's "A Rescue in Space".
6. Edsel Newton's "The Torpedo Terror": "Across the nation sped those dreaded agents of destruction & terror ... until the word was flashed ..."

Free fiction: Astounding, October 1930

At Project Gutenberg & Manybooks.

This is an issue edited by Harry Bates. Scans of all issues edited by Bates, plus text versions of several issues, are online.

Related: Fiction from Astounding/Analog (only stories edited by John W Campbell, Jr).

Free fiction: Astounding, June 1930

At Project Gutenberg & Manybooks.

This is an issue edited by Harry Bates. Scans of all issues edited by Bates, plus text versions of several issues, are online.

Related: Fiction from Astounding/Analog (only stories edited by John W Campbell, Jr).

Free fiction: Astounding, May 1930

At Project Gutenberg & Manybooks. [via QuasarDragon]

This is an issue edited by Harry Bates. Scans of all issues edited by Bates, plus text versions of several issues, are online.

Related: Fiction from Astounding/Analog (only stories edited by John W Campbell, Jr).

Free fiction: Astounding, August 1930

At Project Gutenberg & Manybooks. [via QuasarDragon]

This is an issue edited by Harry Bates. Scans of all issues edited by Bates, plus text versions of several issues, are online.

Related: Fiction from Astounding/Analog (only stories edited by John W Campbell, Jr).

Free fiction: Astounding, March 1930

At Project Gutenberg & Manybooks. [via QuasarDragon]

ToC here.

This is an issue edited by Harry Bates. Scans of all issues edited by Harry Bates are online.

Related: Stories from Analog/Astounding.

Free fiction: Astounding, April 1930

At Project Gutenberg & Manybooks [via QuasarDragon]

This is an issue edited by Harry Bates. Scans of all issues edited by Harry Bates are online.

Related: Stories from Analog/Astounding.

Free fiction: Astounding, September 1930

At Project Gutenberg & Manybooks. [via QuasarDragon]

This is an issue edited by Harry Bates.

Related: Astounding/Analog fiction; Only issues edited by Harry Bates.

Free fiction: Astounding, July 1930

At Project Gutenberg & Manybooks. [via QuasarDragon].

PNG scans of this issue, along with a lot of others, have been online a while now.

Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 (magazine, ed Harry Bates): Annotated table of contents, & download links

See Astounding 1930-1933 scans index page for basic information.
Update 5 August 2009: Text version of this issue is now available at Project Gutenberg & Manybooks.

Scans of all 1930 issues are on this page, one file per page of magazine, March issue pages named like "asf193003PPP.png": PPP - page number. Page number a story begins at is listed in ToC below. ToC below is produced from this scan page. Click cover image on the right for full-sized original scan image.

Page numbers seem to accumulate for a quarter, at which point they are reset. Don't be surprised to find the first story beginning at page two hundred & something.

Each scan page of this issue is about 1.5 MB.

Caution: While the main text of stories seem to be easily readable in these scans (based on the few pages I've seen), ToC appears blurred - at least at my display resolution.

Table of contents.

1. [p 295] Captain S P Meek's "Cold Light": "How could a human body be found actually splintered - broken into sharp fragments like a shattered glass! Once again Dr Bird probes deep into an amazing mystery."
2. [p 306] [serial novel, part 1 of 4] Ray Cummings' "Bridgands of the Moon: The Book Gregg Haljan": "Black mutiny & brigandage stalk the space-ship Pl???tara as she speeds to the moon to pick up a fabulously rich cache of radium-ore."
3. [p 350] Will Smith & R J Robbins' "The Soul Master": "Desperately O'Hare plunged into Prof Kell's mysterious mansion. His friend kip was the victim of the eccentric scientist's de-materializing experiment, & faced a fate more hideous than death."
4. [p 376] Sewell Peaslee Wright's "From the Ocean's Depths": "Man came from the sea. Mercer, by his thought-telepgraph, learns from the weirdly beautiful ocean-maiden of a branch that returned there."
5. [p 390] A T Locke's "Vandals of the Stars": "The livid flame flares across space - & over Manhattan hovers T??xical, vessel of Malfere, Lord of the Universe, who comes with ten thousand warriors to ravage & subjugate one more planet for his master."

Related.

1. Annotated list of stories from John Campbell's Astounding.
   
2. All Analog/Astounding posts.
3. Feed that catches only posts about Analog/Astounding. Caution: Weeks or months might sometimes lapse between these posts.

Astounding Stories of Super-Science, February 1930 (magazine, ed Harry Bates): Annotated table of contents, & download links

Update 28 April 2009: This issue is now available as normal computer text at Project Gutenberg.

See Astounding 1930-1933 scans index page for basic information.

Scans of all 1930 issues are on this page, one file per page of magazine, February issue pages named like "asf193002PPP.png": PPP - page number. Page number a story begins at is listed in ToC below. ToC below is produced from this scan page. Click cover image on the right for full-sized original scan image.

Page numbers seem to accumulate for a quarter, at which point they are reset. Don't be surprised to find the first story beginning at page one hundred & something.

Each scan page of this February 1930 issue is about half MB.

Table of contents.

1. [p 153] Harl Vincent's "Old Crompton's Secret": "Tom's extraordinary machine glowed - & the years were banished from old Crompton's body. But there still remained, deep-seated in his century-old mind, the memory of his crime."
2. [p 166] [novelet - does it mean "novelette"?] Charles Willard Diffin's "Spawn of the Stars": "The earth lay powerless beneath those loathsome, yellowish monsters that, sheathed in comet-like globes, sprang from the skies to annihilate man & reduce his cities to ashes."
3. [p 187] Hugh B Cave's "The Corpse on the Grating": "In the gloomy depths of the old warehouse Dale saw a thing that drew a scream of horror to his dry lips. It was a corpse - a mold of decay on its long-dead features- and yet it was alive!"
4. [p 196] Sophie Wenzel Ellis' "Creatures of the Light": "He had striven to perfect the faultless man of the future, & had succeeded - too well. For in the pitilessly cold eyes of the Adam, his super-human creation, Dr Mundson saw only contempt - & annihilation - for the human race."
5. [p 221] Sterner St Paul's "Into Space": "What was extraordinary connection between Dr Livermore's sudden disappearance, & the coming of a new satellite to the earth?"
6. [novel] [serial - 2 of 2; #1 in January issue] [p 229] Victor Rousseau's "The Beetle Horde": See January 1930 ToC for description.
7. [p 248] Anthony Pelcher's "Mad Music": "The sixty stories of the perfectly constructed colossus building had mysteriously crashed! What was the connection between this catastrophe & the weird strains of the Mad Musician's violin?"
8. [p 259] Captain S P Meek's "The Thief of Time": "The teller turned to stacked pile of bills. They were gone! And no one had been near!"

Related.

1. Annotated list of stories from John Campbell's Astounding.
   
2. All Analog/Astounding posts.
3. Feed that catches only posts about Analog/Astounding. Caution: Weeks or months might sometimes lapse between these posts.

Astounding Stories of Super-Science, January 1930 (magazine, ed Harry Bates): Annotated table of contents, & download links

This is the first issue ever of Analog/Astounding. That alone should mark it as something of historic importance.

See Astounding 1930-1933 scans index page for basic information.

Scans of all 1930 issues are on this page, one file per page of magazine, January issue pages named like "asf193001PPP.png": YYYY - year, MM - month, PPP - page number. Page number a story begins at is listed in ToC below. ToC below is produced from this scan page. Click cover image on the right for full-sized original scan image.

Each scan page of this January 1930 issue is about half MB.

Table of contents.

1. [novel] [serial - 1 of 2] [p 8] Victor Rousseau's "The Beetle Horde": "Only two young explorers stand in the way of the Mad Bram's horrible revenge - the releasing of his trillions of man-sized beetles upon the utterly defenseless world."
2. [p 32] Captain S P Meek's "The Cave of Horror": "Screaming, the guardsman was jerked through the air. An unearthly screech rang through the cavern. The unseen horror of mammoth cave had struck."
3. [novel] [p 46] Ray Cummings' "Phantoms of Reality": "Red Sensua's knife came up dripping, & the two adventurers knew that chaos & bloody revolution had been unleashed in that shadowy kingdom of the fourth dimension."
4. [p 75] M L Staley's "The Stolen Mind": "What would you do, if, like Quest, you were tricked, & your very mind & will stolen from your body."
5. [p 92] C V Tench's "Compensation": "Professor Wroxton had disappeared - but in the bottom of the mysterious crystal cage lay the diamond from his ring!"
6. [p 100] Murray Leinster's "Tanks": Two miles of American front had gone dead. And on two lone infantrymen, lost in the menace of the fog-gas & the tanks, depended the outcome of the war of 1932."
   
   While this description sounds a bit like Leinster's "Morale", it is a different story, because "Morale" appears later - in December 1931 issue.
7. [p 118] Anthony Pelcher's "Invisible Death": "On Lees' quick & clever action depended the life of "Old Perk" Ferguson, the millionaire manufacturer threatened by the uncanny, invisible killer."

Related.

1. Annotated list of stories from John Campbell's Astounding.
   
2. All Analog/Astounding posts.
3. Feed that catches only posts about Analog/Astounding. Caution: Weeks or months might sometimes lapse between these posts.